Ard, Randolph Jefferson
Army Chief warrant officer 2

Randolph Jefferson Ard from West Pensacola, Florida, Escambia county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Sunday, March 7, 1971

Death details: On December 9, 2004, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Chief Warrant Officer Randolph Jefferson Ard, missing from the Vietnam War.

Chief Warrant Officer Ard entered the U.S. Army from Florida and was a member of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division. On March 7, 1971, he piloted an OH-58A Kiowa (tail number 6816814) on a personnel transport mission to an area on the Laos/Vietnam border. On its approach to a landing zone, the aircraft was shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire and crashed in Savannakhet Province, Laos. CWO Ard did not survive the incident and his remains were not recovered at the time of his loss. Between 1989 and 2004, joint U.S./Laotian teams investigated the loss area and recovered a set of remains that U.S. analysts eventually identified as those of CWO Ard.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency